A joystick can be used in a variety of applications. For instance, a joystick may be used as a computer input device or as a mouse replacement; as a control stick for controlling the movements of mobile or stationary equipment, such as self-propelled wheelchairs for the handicapped, excavators and robots; as a slide for mixing board potentiometers; for parameter modification in machine control; and for manual entry of variable scale magnitudes. These known uses for joysticks share the common property that the greater the manually effected deflection, the greater the resulting change in the variables will be; the more rapidly the deflection must be performed, the more rapidly the variable should change. For the handicapped, who must act with the muscles in the remaining stump of an amputated extremity to control a prosthesis or a vehicle, such joysticks are difficult to operate, if at all, because the radius of action within which these persons can still exert a controlled muscle force no longer covers the stroke of such displacement-dependent joysticks. Finally, the large stroke input also requires a large amount of space for the construction and operation of these joysticks. This deficiency exists not only with potentiometer entries, but generally for displacement sensors for the generation of analog control signals, for example, in pivot lever systems for linear displacements with internal kinematic conversion. In addition, lever systems in joysticks often have the disadvantage of nonlinear reactions to the input stroke, which complicates some control tasks. Joysticks with bending elements with wire resistance strain gauges according to GB 2,211,280 A or EP 0,151,479 A or with Hall elements according to WO 93/20535 A as sensors have similar disadvantages. If the manually executed stroke is limited, the resolution, and thus the precision and reproducibility of the setting, is reduced. Moreover, such joysticks which are actuated by displacement inputs present, from a manufacturing standpoint, a solution which is quite expensive and sensitive to mechanical interference, such as, sensitivity to impact or shock. Although the latter drawback does not strictly apply to key pairs, for example, the buttons or remote volume controls of a radio receiver, the precise fine tuning of a nearly achieved specified valve is complicated even for keys reacting at two speeds, and thus is imprecise in practice.